LOWE BLOW

Forget Munster.. Leinster ace James insists Ulster are the one team that Blues REALLY love to hate

- BY DEREK FOLEY

JAMES LOWE has no illusions about this week's game, the three-quarter in him understands height-to-weight ratios, the Leinster player in him understands Ulster is in an in-yer-face derby.

The New Zealander joined the Blues with an open mind and an assumption that the headline derby, against Munster, was the marquee one following on from events in 2008 and 2009.

But having settled in at Leinster it dawned on him that the most difficult derby was Ulster - there is something obstinate about their meetings, something extra, tougher, harder.

It may have a year or two to sink in but if Munster derbies could be crack, snapple and pop, Ulster tended to be snap, crackle and bang there was a different, deeper seam of rivalry.

"I hate Ulster and they will say the exact same thing about us and that's just the way it is, that's the way the cookie crumbles," he says behind a large grin, up for the challenge already this week.

"It was inherited, it didn't start when I turned up in Dublin I do know that, and the feeling is reciprocal but in the most respectful way and I think they will all say it as well."

Lowe owns up to being friendly with some of the northern-based players, rooms with them internationally, swaps pictures of the wife and kids, picks them up after a hard fall at HPC training.

"I don't hate Stu [McCloskey], I don't hate Nathan Doak, I've met him a few times, I don't hate Tom O'Toole at all.

"The rivalry didn't start when Tom O'Toole went up to Ulster. It started years and years ago.